Free Overworld Chronicles Books 1-2: Sweet Blood of Mine & Dark Light of Mine by John Corwin Page B

to get markedly worse. Or maybe being sucked dry by a vampiric hottie was a decent way to go. Except I wouldn't be around to brag about it, which was kind of depressing.
    Stacey pressed both my shoulders against the van. I struggled like a mouse under a cat's paw, but might as well have been clamped in place by steel bands. She pressed her pert nose to my neck and inhaled deeply.
    "Such a young tender fledgling." She licked me with her sandpaper tongue again. I wondered if this was the same as sniffing a warm apple pie before chomping it.
    "Maybe it's my Axe body spray," I said. My voice trembled and my body started to shake. I drew upon every bit of willpower I had left and rammed my knee into her stomach. My knee met a plate of steel. I yelped. The girl must do serious ab workouts.
    She laughed. "Such spirit. Such fear." Her nose nuzzled my ear playfully. The faster my heart thudded in my chest, the louder she purred with happiness.
    "What are you? A vampire?"
    She let out a deep-throated laugh. "My little lamb, you are so precocious." Her hot lips pressed against my neck and traced up to my ear, leaving a hot trail on my skin. She nibbled my earlobe. I expected the sharp sting of those fangs at any moment. She faced me with half-lidded eyes. Her purring grew louder and her eyes widened until she seemed to gaze into my very soul with those luminous amber moons. Something tugged at my fear as though it were a large fish swimming in my sea of emotions. A part of me resisted the pull, jerking and flailing. Another part of me rejoiced in the sheer ecstasy of the moment. But the numbing warmth only increased the terror slamming my heart against its ribcage. I fought harder but my will faltered. Those eyes had the gravity of stars and I was a helpless planet about to be sucked into oblivion.
    Something vaporous drifted from my eyes and toward her. It was like staring down a long tunnel of white misty light. I tried to scream but something seemed to block my vocal cords. The light resisted the pull and slowed to a crawl. The tension increased yet again and the terror in my heart climaxed. The light reached her eyes.
    Fireworks exploded in our faces. Or at least they looked like fireworks. Red, green, and blue lights flared like the destruction of a tiny star between our noses.
    Stacey rocketed backward, slamming into the side of a white BMW and leaving a Stacey-sized dent in the door. She fell to the ground, screaming and covering her blackened face. My own face felt sunburned and fried but I only staggered back slightly. While she writhed on the pavement making pathetic mewling noises, I kicked her. It wasn't exactly the gentlemanly thing to do but I didn't care. It was, however, the wrong thing to do. I might as well have kicked bricks. My foot made a cracking noise.
    I yelped and hopped on one leg. I don't know how I kept my balance. Unless I procured a rocket launcher, I wasn't going to do anything else to hurt this girl of steel. So I did the only thing I could do. I limped very, very quickly back to my car, whimpering from the pain in my possibly broken foot and tried to block out the horrible dying cat act from Stacey. I started up the Jetta and peeled out of there like demons were on my tail.
    About halfway home I broke into sobs. "This can't be happening. This did not just happen. I'm going insane. I am insane. I'm freaking insane!" My eyes burned and watered. My vision blurred. If drinking my dad's beer had made me drunk, something Stacey had done to me was making me feel drunk and high at the same time.
    I swerved around a corner just as a pregnant woman stepped into the road in front of me. Her face flashed in the headlights. I slammed on the brakes but it was too late. Eyes squeezed shut, I waited for the thud of body on metal. The sound never came. I leapt from the car and staggered around it. No body. No sign of anyone at all. But a woman had been there! Her face—my God, her face. She'd looked just like Mom. I